おさしぶりね

it`s been sooo long since I`ve been here... I haven`t forgotten, but I just haven`t had a good time to update. I`ve mostly been in the middle of nowhere with the only possible internet access from an iPhone if wi-fi is available.

I spent 6 weeks in South Korea, where I taught middle school and elementary school students English. I had so much fun and now I feel more confident that I could handle a year long commitment teaching English in Japan. not that it would be the same as doing a ten day summer camp in Korea... but similar.
the first ten day camp was 8th grade students, and I`ve worked with kids this age a lot, so I loved it. my co-teacher Joon & I got along great and teased each other all the time. so this is a picture with the 12 students from our homeroom class. after that, the other American teachers at my school went to stay at a temple for a couple nights. that was an amazing cultural experience, but waking up at 3:30 am to do 108 bows (from kneeling to standing up) both mornings before breakfast was brutal. we didn`t get much rest before the 6th grade camp. they had sooo much energy, and we had none left. but I still really enjoyed meeting them and was impressed by how well the students could communicate in English already.

after the camps we got a little tour of some National museums and went to Seoul for a little free time. I had seen pictures from an island south of the Korean peninsula that were amazing, so I decided to get myself there. it`s called Jeju island, or Jeju-do (which is it`s own provence in South Korea). I went with one of the other teachers with no real plan and we figured out seeing this amazing place we saw in the pictures.

it was rainy and really foggy that day, but we waited around to get a clear view of this inverted dome called Seongsan Ilchubong on the East side of the island. it`s actually a big island, so we saw very little of it. it was really relaxing though - I enjoyed just going to the beach. the people in South Korea are super kind also, and it was great to make some friends staying in the hostel there.

so now I`m in Japan. my favorite country to visit. probably because I feel more confident to have a conversation in Japanese as far as second languages go. after being in Korea for six weeks, I picked up a lot by accident, though a lot of it was the way the students talk and not really appropriate to use. hah. so I felt a little confused going to Japan, but immediately started speaking to people in Japanese a little and not having much trouble to understand either. phew. I was definitely out of practice and slower than usual... but it came back fast.

I met a couple online friends who were super kind and helpful. Hiroko took me to an awesome cafe that`s a tree house. it was really nice to relax there for a while.

and Yasu has been so awesome. we went to the Ghibli museum (first time for both of us) and it was really cool!

tomorrow night I`m going to the Kansai region for the first time to visit our exchange student from when I was a kid. I`ll be there for a week, then off to Hong Kong again!